


but i'm not the girl you once put your faith in (just someone who looks like me)

by illuminatedcities



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Consent Issues, D/s elements, Doctor/Patient, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, F/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Penis In Vagina Sex, Praise Kink, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:28:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6833278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illuminatedcities/pseuds/illuminatedcities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She could fill books with the things she doesn't know about him, but she knows this: he worries, he mourns, he is endlessly gentle when he touches her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but i'm not the girl you once put your faith in (just someone who looks like me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talkingtothesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/gifts).



> The dubcon warning relates to the patient/therapist relationship depicted in this fic. As a disclaimer, and in case the narrative fails to make it clear: I do not approve of romantic or sexual relationships between mental health professionals and their patients in real life and consider them unethical behavior. If it troubles you to read about a fictional depiction of such a relationship, you should give this story a pass. 
> 
> This story takes place in season 4 and is labeled as 'canon divergence' since season 5 will almost certainly joss certain parts of it. I haven't caught up on the fifth season yet, so consider this fic free of spoilers and AU-ish. 
> 
> This fic was inspired by long conversations with Sky about the ladies on POI (and the bad fandom rep some of them get); Sky double-dared me to write Iris-centric fic and here we are today : D You are a delight and a trusted beta / editor, bb <333 Thanks for your encouragement and work on this story. This fic is for you. 
> 
> This fic also features a blink-and-you'll-miss-it-cameo by a lady from a popular tv show about fictional FBI agents.
> 
> Title from "Humpty Dumpty" by Aimee Mann.

"Maybe I could get a haircut," Iris says. She pulls her hair into a loose ponytail with her hands and then holds it up to the side of her face. She tries to imagine how it would look cut off just above her hand, a sleek bob.

"Why would you do that," her mom says. She bats Iris' hand away and starts to work on her hair with a comb. "You have such lovely hair, it would be a waste to cut it off."

Iris tugs at the hem of her crème-colored, strapless prom dress. She would have liked something more colorful, green or yellow maybe, but her mother claims it clashes with the color of her hair.

"Are you two girls ready?" Iris' father calls from downstairs. He is probably waiting in the hallway with a camera.

Iris looks at the clock. Ten minutes until Josh arrives. Hopefully her dad won't shine a desk lamp into his face and ask him if he's guilty of any law violations.

"Nearly done," her mom calls down. She picks a golden tube of lipstick from the dresser. "This one is perfect, I think."

\--

Five hours later, Iris sits in the waiting area of the local emergency room, cradling a plastic cup of hot chocolate and feeling like an idiot.

"I'm fine," she says preemptively when her father bursts into the room. He looks a bit crazy-eyed, like he'd like to go to town on her prom date's kneecaps with his extendable baton. "But I think I broke Josh's nose."

(She told him that she didn't want to make out in his car. _Twice._ He really deserved to have an elbow smacked into his face for trying to put a hand up her dress anyway.)

Funnily enough, not many guys want to date her after that: making a citizen's arrest on prom night apparently doesn't improve your chances of a successful love life.

\--

She's good at the academy, but she isn't _brilliant_ , and nobody is more disappointed by that than herself. Iris knows what it means to be a police officer, she lives with her _dad_ after all. She remembers every single one of his stories. She also heard all of her grandpa's stories, even though she is pretty sure that he exaggerates most of them. (Either that or he has arrested the Russian mob all by himself.) She has no problem keeping up with the physical requirements and she's doing well in all of her classes, but there is a hole in everything, something painfully hollow. There's a spark in her father's eyes when he talks about his work, even when he complains about his partner and the endless stake-outs and the decline of the city. Her mother says he will be useless if he ever retires, that he loves it too much to let go.

Iris sits in front of her desk in her small room and learns emergency codes by heart and wonders when she'll find the spark, and if she can make herself hold on until then, running on caffeine and determination and sheer stubbornness.

\--

Iris finds the spark, in a class almost at the end of her training in the police academy. The class is an elective called _Intro to Forensic Psychopathology_ and most of her classmates roll their eyes at it: it's not police work, all that psychobabble, and if they wanted to catch the criminally insane, they would just have applied for the FBI in the first place.

The instructor is a guest lecturer from Quantico: a woman with sleek, black hair in a dark turtleneck and smart black trousers. She introduces herself as Agent Prentiss and talks about her work interviewing extremely dangerous serial killers for the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Iris sits at the edge of her seat, listening in fascination while the PowerPoint slides click away on the wall, detailing the psychological profiles.

Agent Prentiss explains the profile of a man accused of murdering twelve women, all by strangulation. She forwards to the next slide. "Can someone imagine why my team thought I would be an ideal candidate for the interrogation?"

There is a moment of silence. "They didn't want to do it themselves?" A male voice from the second row offers, eliciting a few snorting laughs.

Agent Prentiss smirks. She is pretty, Iris notes, in a way that is sharp around the edges, like an offensive weapon. "Thank you for the valuable contribution," she says, in a tone that is the verbal equivalent of emptying a bucket of ice water over someone's head. "Any other suggestions?"

"You were his type," Iris says. She nods at the slide. "All the victims were slim, tall, dark-haired. They wanted to see his reaction."

Agent Prentiss cocks her head. "That is a very good observation and absolutely correct," she says. "It's easier to get the information you need if you manage to unsettle the UnSub during the interrogation. Well done."

Iris feels the glow of pride all through the rest of the day.

\--

She doesn't end up working for the FBI. She looks up the work of the BAU online, sitting cross-legged in her pajamas in front of the laptop one late night alone in her room, clicking through the pages. She even prints the application form: it sits on her desk for a few weeks before she guiltily buries it in a drawer.

Iris finishes her training at the academy and decides to become a therapist instead: all the psychiatry, decidedly less of the criminal insanity. She gets to talk to cops who suffer from PTSD after traumatic experiences on duty, alcohol and gambling addictions, depression and anxiety.

It's calm and predictable and, in a weird way, more rewarding than she could have hoped for – she sees her dad in the worried, chain-smoking man in the seat across from her who can't seem to let go of his case, her uncle in a Homicide detective who uses Scotch to cope with the job. Iris learns how to just be with someone, give them her full attention. She learns how to refrain from snap judgments. She learns that sometimes, all that people need is someone who listens.

"I guess it suits you," her mother says, piling more apple pie onto Iris' plate on a Sunday afternoon. "You've always been more of a bookish girl, police work just wasn't right for you."

Iris tries really hard not to let it sting. She stirs her coffee. "I liked being at the academy," she says. It's close enough: she didn't _hate_ it. "But I think I'm really making a valuable contribution–"

Her father slathers his piece of pie in cream. He huffs, annoyed. "You're saying that keeping the streets of New York safe is not a valuable contribution?"

"You know that's not what I'm saying," Iris says.

He looks at her. "You know, I'm not going to lie: I was surprised when you said you didn't want to do active police work. After all the effort you put in at the academy?"

 _Effort,_ Iris notes. He didn't say 'after all the _success_ you had'.

"Well, I do think having a nice office with a desk and a couch is much preferable to spending your nights in a car on a stakeout while drinking stale coffee," her mother says. "Also you're not in danger of anyone shooting at you."

"That's psychoanalysis," Iris mumbles.

Her parents look at her blankly.

"The whole thing where patients lie down on the couch and you talk about their childhood? That's psychoanalysis. Freud. Id, ego, super-ego and all that stuff. I have armchairs in my office."

Her mother makes her _That's nice, darling –_ face. Iris has a sudden urge to take the porcelain cup in her hand and smash it against the wall, but what would Freud say to _that._

"You get to wear dresses to work, that's nice, isn't it?" , her dad finally asks and leans in to kiss the top of her head. "I'm sure you'll be doing fine."

It's not what she hoped for, but then again, it never is.

\--

John Riley is, in professional terms, a mess. He sits across from her like he's in the dentist's chair, a blank expression and six feet of badly contained nervous energy.

By the time Iris asks: "How does that make you feel?", he looks like she just cocked the trigger of a hand grenade and threw it to him. (Correction: John Riley would definitely be more comfortable handling a grenade than admitting to his feelings.)

He doesn't show up for his second session, or his third. Probably he is busy shooting his gun in a busy, populated area, Iris thinks. She wonders if someone informed him about the paperwork he has to file every time he fires his service weapon: she would bet good money that he doesn't know that it's a thing.

\--

The secret to doing therapy with children, Iris remembers reading in one of her textbooks, is to gain their trust and approval. This can be done by creating a light, pleasant atmosphere, offering something to eat or asking them questions about the toys and stuffed animals they brought. Iris wonders if John might be more open to therapy if she offered him a soda and gave him a teddy bear to hold on to, or maybe a sniper rifle: he is about as cooperative as a sulky ten year old who just wants to go _home._

"Why did you choose to become a cop?" , she asks.

John squirms in his chair. "I thought I might be good at it," he says. More silence.

Iris waits another three minutes just to show that she can out-silence him any day. "Are there aspects of the job that bother you?"

His lips twitch. "The paperwork."

"Fair enough," Iris says.

He nods at the notebook in front of her. "You should write that down," he says, deadpan.

He has very long, thick eyelashes, and in the sunlight, she can see the gray in his hair. He's attractive, she thinks, stubborn and emotionally closed off like an oyster with awful coping mechanisms, but definitely something to look at.

She snaps out of her moment of superficial admiration and leans forward to close her notebook. "Or you could tell me why you hate the idea of therapy so much, and we'll both have accomplished something today."

He shows no visible reaction. "What did you accomplish?"

"I have proof that you trust me enough to tell me something honest. Something real."

He averts his gaze when she says the word 'trust'. He picks at the seam of the cushion in his chair, as much of a nervous habit as she's seen in him. Psychotherapy is a lot like playing poker, sometimes: everyone has a tell, a little nervous tick that shows under pressure. She can tell that John Riley has trained himself out of most of them, in fact, Iris is sure that he occasionally drums his fingers in exaggerated nervousness during some topics just to throw her off her game.

"We could also spend all of our sessions pretending that you're fine and that I think you're fine and then, when we're both fed up with that, I sign your permission slip and you get to go back to shooting at people,” Iris says.

He does something with his mouth that might be a bad approximation of a smile. "You think I'm not fine?", he asks. "I'm hurt."

It's supposed to sound flippant, blasé, but there is a nervous quality to it.

"I know you're not fine," Iris says.

John Riley shifts in his chair some more. The thing is: she really is brilliant at _this._

_\--_

"Some habits are there to protect you," John says.

He hides his mouth with his hand to mask his expression. When he can't make himself say something, he just shakes his head and nods. He doesn't smile, but when he does, it transforms his face into something painfully open and raw.

"From what?" Iris asks. It's the mental health professional that makes her push forward: her instinct tells her to back off, the same way she would if she encountered a hurt animal in a cage. Pushing is good for progress, but you occasionally break things along the way.

"From the way things go," John says, with an immeasurable sadness on his face.

She knows, suddenly, from the way she wants to get up and put her arms around him, that she's royally _screwed._

_\--_

This is what Dr. Iris Campbell does: she buys the sensible pair of shoes. She wears her hair long because cutting it off would be a pity, and really, experiments are for college girls who dye their hair blue. She has the right friends. She visits her parents every Sunday for tea. She recycles her trash.

Iris is the girl in the second row in the math classroom who has done all the problem sets already, the girl who says: "Yes, mom, of course”.

When she realizes that she is falling for her patient, of course she does the right thing, it's not like she ever even considered doing anything else. Iris is, if anything, a _good girl._ (Her mother still says that when they talk on the phone, every time. _Be good, Iris. Be good._ One of these days Iris is going to throw her cell phone into the harbor.)

Choosing a career as a mental health professional over being a police officer is the most drastic, independent decision she has ever made in her life, and if that isn't telling, she doesn't know what is.

\--

Of course she knows about countertransference, she has read Jung: all of these horribly dull pages about archetypes, the collective unconscious and all that jazz. She pulls one of her textbooks from her bookshelf and opens the page to _Transference in Psychotherapy_ :

"[...] a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and the substitution of another person for the original object of the repressed impulses".

She closes the book and runs her hand over the cover. She knows what the rest says, the truly relevant part. "Countertransference", the term applied when a therapist develops feelings for a patient, or to use the fancy German name, ' _Gegenübertragung'._

Oh, she can see it, it's all there, it's a work hazard that she has all the tools to analyze herself: her father, continually absent during her childhood, always working, never home for dinner. A cop who kept getting involved in dangerous situations, always struggling to admit his feelings. Emotionally distant. A vague feeling of disappointment that Iris hadn't turned out a boy.

She should have seen it sooner, all the ways John reminds her of him. That _need_ she feels in his presence, to dig down and make him better, to get his approval. To make him _love_ her, god, how stupid, embarrassing.

It's textbook, it's classic; you take a childhood relationship and project it onto something else, romantic, sexual attraction, what a useful fucking piece of experience for her future career.

In her kitchen, Iris opens a bottle of wine and eats a pint of ice cream and scares her cat when she accidentally knocks the glass over into the sink where it shatters into pieces with a satisfying crash.

Some approaches suggest to go to the root of the attraction, _discuss_ the issue with the patient, and wouldn't _that_ be delightful: John, I keep fantasizing about kissing you, what do you think that means for your progress in therapy? What tragic part of your childhood are you recreating in _me_?

 _Or maybe,_ a little voice in her head says, _you actually do like him, his wry humor, his soft eyes. Did you think about that?_ Iris drowns the voice with the rest of the Cabernet in a fresh glass in an attempt at self-medication.

\--

Of course, he cannot let it go: he ran away from her for weeks, but now that she wants him to, he is all up in her face with that betrayed puppy look, like she let him down somehow. ( _I'm protecting you from the both of us,_ she wants to say. It sounds really convincing in her head, but she'd rather not put it to the test.)

 _Be good, Iris,_ the voice of her mother says in her head.

 _This kind of work suits you much better,_ the voice of her father says. _You weren't cut out for police work anyway._

She tells John the truth and that should do it, that should be the end of it: she is pretty sure that neither one of them feels like exploring the issue further, and really, it's not like she has a shortage of cops to do psych evals on, she certainly won't be out of work anytime soon.

John looks at her like she has switched from English to a dead language. (Oh god, she _is_ scared. She's scared of the things he makes her want to do.)

There is a particular expression you put on when people tell you something objectively outrageous, or indiscreet: the face that hides your knee-jerk reaction of _You must have known this was a bad idea._ Suddenly, Iris realizes that she had it wrong all along: it's not so much that she fails to see the consequences of her decision, or that she is uncertain if she is doing the right thing. (It's the wrong thing. It's definitely the wrong thing.) It's just that she's tired of caring. She's tired of buying the sensible pair of shoes. She knows it is a bad idea, she just doesn't give a damn.

\--

He doesn't kiss her back. She can't hear anything but the rushing of her own blood in her ears, her shaky breath when she leans in to bring their mouths together. _He doesn't kiss her back_ and she pulls back, mortified, looking for an escape route.

Iris misread him: he slides his hand around her wrist and pulls her close again. There is something in the movement that makes her spin against him, something more than gravity: it might be a bad choice, but it's _hers._

When they part again, his fingers are resting against her cheek. He strokes them over her cheekbone, along the shell of her ear. She could fill books with the things she doesn't know about him, but she knows this: he worries, he mourns, he is endlessly gentle when he touches her. He leans in to brush his lips over her jaw, seeking contact.

"More?" , she asks, and he smiles a little, boyish smile and moves to kiss her again, opening his mouth when she runs her tongue along his lips. His hand is warm where it rests against her thigh.

For once, she lets herself stop thinking.

\--

"Did you remove all personal objects before I came over or does it always look like this?" , she asks, walking around in John's living room with a glass of wine in her hand.

John peeks around the corner in his silly apron, his sleeves rolled up. He has the grace to look embarrassed. "The place always looks like this," he says. "I'm not big on interior design."

"That's one way of putting it," Iris says. She walks back to the kitchen to watch him work. She considers pointing out that the lack of photographs and personal belongings just further illustrates his isolation, his refusal to openly attach emotional value to relationships. Oh, he cares, he wouldn't be so miserable if he _didn't_ care, but admitting it, that's a whole different thing. Iris lets it slide. She's not on duty, anyway. "Are you sure I can't help you with anything?"

He makes neat little cubes out of a peeled onion using what looks like an extremely sharp knife. "I can handle it," he says. "Would you like some more wine?"

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" She swirls the glass in her palm. "Because I can hold my liquor, just so you're warned." She went to school with a bunch of future police officers, recreational drinking was essentially a required class.

John adjusts the temperature of the stove and stirs something in a saucepan, then removes the lid from a pot of water before it can boil over. He is either some kind of secret master chef or low-level psychic. "I'll keep it in mind," he says.

It's nice to see John in his own kitchen: he looks less like he might jump out of his skin with tension any second. There is a calm competence to the way he moves around that makes Iris want to settle in and watch him all day. She puts her glass on the counter and steps up behind him: she isn't quite tall enough to look over his shoulder even in heels, but she lets her hand rest at the small of his back, just above the knot of the apron. He wears his dark suit sans the jacket and a crisp white shirt even at home. Maybe he isn't comfortable enough around her to take off his armor.

"I'm a horrible cook," Iris says. "I never give my cat any leftovers, I'm afraid I will poison her."

He turns to look at her and offers her a wooden spoon with a bit of thick, red pasta sauce on it. She leans forward to taste it. "Oh, god," Iris says. "I can never buy pasta sauce at the grocery store again, thanks a lot."

"Good?" John asks, his mouth curving into a shape that might be a smile. He seems honestly _insecure,_ which, given the fact that this sauce is incredible, strikes her as somewhat hilarious.

She runs her hand over his back again. "Delicious," she says.

He leans into the touch almost imperceptibly. If she tries really hard, she can fool herself: pretend that this is nothing out of the ordinary, a quiet night at home with the guy she's currently seeing. _Oh, he's a cop?_ , she can hear her friends asking. _What a coincidence._

Iris steps away from the stove. She refills her wine glass and sits down at the kitchen table.

"Is everything alright?" John asks. Despite the four pans he apparently watches and stirs at all times during his dinner preparation, he seems to have caught her shift in mood. She had a theory, during their first sessions, that he finds it hard to read emotions in others, but by now she is convinced that it's the exact opposite, that he is shutting down precisely because he sees _too much._

John adjusts the heat and stirs some more, then he turns to look at her.

Iris runs the tip of her index finger over the rim of the wine glass. "What are we doing?"

His face is carefully blank. "It's a secret family recipe, I'm afraid I can't tell you any details," he says.

She smiles faintly. "You're avoiding the question."

John tilts his head. "And you're using your therapist voice on me."

"I don't have a _therapist voice_ ," she says.

He does that awkward wiggling thing with his eyebrows. "You really do."

It's a blow to the gut, that one: it makes her think about how she will never be really able to tell if he is currently talking to his therapist or his lover. Sometimes, she can trick herself into thinking that they never sat across from each other in her office, that she never listed all the reasons why they _shouldn't_ just to do it anyway. Iris shied away from applying for the Bureau because she couldn't imagine having that darkness in her life, but what if that was naive? What if there really is darkness in everything, in small increments that spill through the cracks if you misstep?

She gets to her feet so they're facing each other. John reaches out to turn off the stove without looking. _Run, run, run,_ Iris thinks, not sure which one of them she is talking to.

"This is the worst thing I've ever done in my life," Iris says. She leans in close enough that her lips almost brush his. She was at a seminar once that outlined the appropriate process in case you feel yourself emotionally entangled with a patient. Iris _took notes_.

John ducks his head. His smile is guilty, and a little sad. "This isn't the worst thing I've ever done in my life," he says. "Pretty sure it doesn't even make the top five."

She tries not to let any expression show on her face, but he must have seen _something_ : he lets his hands rest on her shoulders like he's trying to reassure her. He's better at touch than he is with words, Iris notes, more intuitive.

"I shouldn't have said that," John says.

"What do you think will happen if you tell me? About the things you've done?”

He runs his thumb over her shoulder. "I think you'd reconsider wanting to be alone in a room with me."

The question she wants to ask is ' _why?'_ , but there is such a thing as pushing your luck. "Are you going to hurt me, John?", she asks instead. _Because I'm pretty sure I might end up hurting you, and it might be a good idea to level the playing field._

The expression on his face is baffled, taken aback. "No," he says. He looks appalled at the very idea. "I'm not planning to do anything that hurts you."

 _Planning,_ not _going to:_ he keeps the option of hurting her by accident open. She suddenly realizes what his expression looks like. It is the face of someone who waits for the sky to come crashing down at virtually any second.

Recklessly, she reaches out to hook her fingers under his belt and pull him closer. "That's all anyone can really do, isn't it?"

John looks like he wants to argue the point. "What if that's not good enough?"

"It's good enough for me," she says.

\--

This time when she kisses him, he doesn't stay still: his arms come around her, pulling her flush against him. She runs her fingers over his neck, presses herself against him and feels that he's hard even through the ridiculous apron.

Neither of them cares about the food at this point, which is just as well: it leaves her free to push her hand into his hair and tug, rub her hips against him until he moans into her mouth. _I don't do this,_ she thinks, _I'm not the kind of person who does this_ , but the truth is, she _does_ and she _is,_ and figuring out the truth about yourself is the first step to becoming a sane person, or something.

Nothing about this is particularly sane: Iris doesn't have the nerve to take off her dress, so she ends up pushing it up to her waist.

John, communicating much better when no words are involved, gets down on one knee to tug her panties down her legs. She leans against the counter, panting. He kisses her knee, the inside of her thighs, all the way up between her legs. Then John grabs her ass and pulls her close against his face, her knees are wobbly with the effort just to stay upright.

Iris groans when she feels his tongue against her, the marble countertop digging into her back. She learns a few new things about him: he makes a pleased noise when she tightens her grip on his hair, he is very good at breathing through his nose, he lets her move her hips and fuck his mouth when she gets impatient, her orgasm shuddering through her in a sudden, hot wave.

John's chin and mouth are wet and shiny when he leans back. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks up at her, and she grabs his collar and pulls him up to kiss him. Their hands tangle between them where they both try to undo his belt and fly at the same time. Iris has a last brief flash of sanity in which she tears herself away and grabs her handbag from where it's sitting abandoned on the counter. She rummages around in it for way too long until she finds a condom.

He grabs her hips and picks her up without any obvious difficulty and sets her down on the countertop: his grip is a little too tight on her hips, but even that is good. She hopes it will leave bruises. Iris pulls down his boxers and closes a hand around him, and that makes him sigh and step forward, close against her, pushing into her hand. She leans forward to lick the hollow of his throat, tasting his skin.

Iris didn't think it would be this way, the few times she allowed herself to entertain the fantasy. She thought she'd have to coax him out of his shell in this as well, but now that she pushed that door wide open, his hands are everywhere on her body, greedy for touch.

“You're gorgeous,” he says against her collarbone, groaning when she runs her thumb over the head of his cock.

She puts the condom on him with shaky hands and wraps her thighs around his hips. He gets the message and pushes into her, his hands clutching at her thighs and his mouth wet and hot at the side of her throat.

Iris digs her nails into his back and pants against his chest, and John makes a thin little noise and says: "Like this?", like she isn't about to shudder and come in his arms all over again.

"Slow down," she says, to test a theory.

He whimpers, stopping mid-thrust and then pacing himself when he rocks into her. She gets a hand into his hair and pulls his head back so they're facing each other. There is something in his expression, a desperate kind of need that has nothing to do with sex. She moves her hips against him, giving him a rhythm, and he follows her obediently, his eyes glassy, mouth parted.

Iris strokes his chin, the side of his face. "That's good," she says and he exhales in relief, his eyes going half-lidded. She thought so. "Bend your knees a little," she says, and he does: the angle is better this way, and she groans and grabs fistfuls of his shirt.

"Just like that," she says, low against his ear, and she feels him shudder. "Faster," she says, and his hips snap up to meet her.

She mouths and nibbles at his throat, and a playful bite gets her a sharp snap of his hips against her, her name on his tongue like a plea. Iris takes his right hand and guides it between her legs, and then it only takes a few more thrusts until she clenches around him, coming hard enough that she sees white flashes behind her closed eyelids. John makes a helpless noise and goes boneless against her when he comes, his face buried against her neck.

Iris reaches up to run her hands through his sweaty hair, soothe the marks she left on his throat with her tongue. "Is that what you like," she says against his skin, "for someone to tell you what to do? Someone to tell you how good you've been?"

She can feel the twitch of his softening cock at the words. John wraps his arms more tightly around her.

"You've done so well," she whispers, nuzzling his throat.

Iris can feel the tension draining out of his shoulders, his little, relieved exhale.

\--

"Are you sure you want it that short?" The hairdresser, a guy with a platinum blond undercut, looks skeptical. "It's not that I don't think it will look great, but it's a pretty big change, so. You should really be sure."

"I am," Iris says. She runs her thumb over the long braid of hair. "I think I'm ready for a change."

The guy smiles. "Feeling brave today, huh." He holds up the scissors to indicate the length where the cut will be, a bit below her chin.

"Actually, I _am_ feeling brave," Iris says, and takes a deep breath when she watches the scissors move. There's a sharp, metallic sound and then her head feels lighter, all of a sudden, and she holds a thick bundle of braided hair in her hands.

"There you go."

Iris touches the back of her neck where the air is suddenly cool against her skin. "I think I'd like it a little shorter still," she says, and the hairdresser laughs.

"You know what you want, I like that."

 _Me too,_ Iris thinks.

\--

The thing about choices is that once you made them, you can never go back. She'll always be the girl who sat in an ER on prom night in a dress she didn't like. She'll always be the girl who chose to not be a cop. She'll always be a therapist who had an affair with a patient.

She closes her hands around John's wrists and holds him down and drinks the sounds he makes from his tongue, and later, when she stares up at the ceiling in the darkness, she thinks: _I wonder if you will look back someday and think about me as one of the terrible things that have happened to you._

\--

There is a game they invented that goes like this: if she guesses the origin of a scar correctly, John tells her the story of how he got it. It's more tricky than she thought: everything looks like a knife wound to her at first, but there are variations in the scar tissue: a wound caused by the blast of an explosion, a chemical burn.

"What are you thinking about?" , he asks her.

She curls up against his naked chest and entwines their fingers. "You once said that if you didn't save people in need, nobody would. I think you blame yourself for every single person you couldn't save, no matter if it was your fault or not," she says.

His breathing is even, but she can feel the tension in his body.

"Maybe they _were_ all my fault," he says.

She wants to get her hands into his chest, wrap her hands around the tendrils of darkness there and pull them out with her fingers, but that's not how it _works._

"So you don't think that you deserve to be happy at all?"

He doesn't answer. She runs her thumb over the back of his hand. "We need to stop meeting like this," she says.

"Why?"

She lets her head rest against his chest. "Because it's a mistake to blur the lines like that. Because I could harm you way more than I'd ever be able to help you."

He presses a kiss against her neck. "What if I don't mind?"

Iris blinks away tears. "There are a lot of things you don't mind that you _should_ mind. It should matter to you if someone is making you better or worse."

_She'll always be the person who made this choice._

"I am going to apply for a job at the FBI," Iris says. "The Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico."

She turns around so she can look at him. His face gives nothing away.

"Why the FBI?" , John asks. He runs a hand through her short hair. He does that all the time, combing his fingers through it while they kiss.

"Because it terrifies me," Iris says.

He runs his thumb along her jawline. "I'm going to miss you," he says.

 _You shouldn't have kissed me back,_ she thinks, and: _You deserve to be happy,_ and: _I'm sorry,_ and: _If you've done something terrible, how do you make peace with it? How do you live with yourself knowing that you would do it all over again?_

"I'm going to miss you, too," she says, instead. When she kisses him, he doesn't move away.

\-- fin

 

**Author's Note:**

> By popular demand: My suggestion for the perfect John-Reese-themed apron is certainly [this model.](http://cdn.notonthehighstreet.com/system/product_images/images/001/619/397/original_bear-hug-apron.jpg)
> 
> Dana prefers a [frilly version](http://theragnarokd.tumblr.com/post/144192248374/things-i-require), which has the bonus of being utterly hilarious. xD


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